MY MAFIA BOYFRIEND

I've Got You

Julian kept her close long after the earlier tension had faded.

He sat on the couch with Isabella tucked against his side, one arm around her shoulders, his hand moving slowly up and down her arm. The penthouse was quiet.

Her phone had stayed face-down on the table since the last time it rang. Julian had silenced it without comment. He hadn’t let her answer, and he hadn’t spoken to whoever was calling.

“They’re still looking,” Isabella said quietly.

“I know.” His voice was calm. “They can keep looking.”

She turned her face toward him. “They don’t know where I am.”

“And they’re not going to.” Julian’s fingers brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, the touch careful. “No one downstairs will tell them. No one upstairs will either. As far as the world is concerned, you disappeared into this building and that’s where the trail ends.”

Isabella was quiet for a moment. “My mother sounds more worried every time she leaves a message.”

“She can worry.” He didn’t say it unkindly, only firmly. “Worry won’t get her through my doors.”

The private elevator chimed. Dante stepped into the living area. He stopped a short distance away and waited.

“Lobby’s clean,” Dante reported. “No one is asking questions tonight. I have two extra men on the lower floors just in case.”

Julian gave a small nod. “Keep it that way. If anyone claiming to be family shows up, they don’t get past the front desk. I don’t care what papers they wave around.”

“Understood.” Dante’s gaze flicked briefly to Isabella, then back to Julian. He left without another word.

Once the elevator doors closed, Julian shifted so he could see her face properly. The hard edge he wore around everyone else had eased, replaced by something quieter and only for her.

“You’re safe here,” he said. “They can call. They can search. They can send whoever they want. None of it reaches you unless I allow it.”

He leaned down and pressed a slow kiss to her forehead, then to her temple.

“Sleep when you’re ready. I’ll be right here.”

Isabella rested against him, listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing, while somewhere far below the city — her parents kept searching for a daughter whose location they had no idea about.

The request came two days later.

Isabella stood near the windows of the penthouse, arms wrapped around herself, watching the city below. Julian was across the room reviewing something on his laptop when she finally spoke.

“I want to go home,” she said. “Just for a day. I want to see my mother.”

Julian’s fingers hovered over the keys. He looked up slowly.

“No.”

The single word was quiet, but it landed hard.

Isabella turned to face him fully. “She’s worried. She keeps calling. I just need to show her I’m okay.”

“You are okay,” Julian replied, setting the laptop down. “You’re here. That’s all she needs to know.”

“That’s not enough for her.” Her voice rose slightly. “She’s my mother. I haven’t seen her in weeks. I’m not asking to leave permanently — I just want a few hours.”

Julian stood. The softness he usually reserved for her was gone, replaced by the same controlled firmness he used with everyone else.

“You’re not walking out of this building to go sit in a house where your father and your ex are waiting to pull you back. I already told you — they don’t get access to you.”

“I’m not their property,” she shot back. “And I’m not yours to lock away either.”

The silence that followed was sharp.

Julian’s jaw tightened. “Careful.”

“Or what?” Isabella’s eyes were bright with frustration. “You’ll keep me here until I stop asking? Until I forget I had a life before this?”

“I will keep you here because it’s the only place I can guarantee you’re safe,” he said, voice low and final. “The answer is no.”

Something in her expression closed off. She stepped back when he moved toward her.

“Don’t.”

Julian stopped.

“I mean it,” she said, quieter now but steady. “Don’t touch me.”

He studied her face for a long moment, then gave a short nod and turned away. That night he slept on the far side of the bed. The next morning he didn’t reach for her. He didn’t pull her into his lap at breakfast. He didn’t kiss her temple when he passed.

For three days the penthouse felt colder.

Julian still made sure she ate. He still ordered the things she liked. He still answered when she spoke. But the private tenderness he had only ever shown her was gone, locked behind a wall of polite distance. Isabella kept to herself, sleeping turned away from him, leaving rooms when he entered if she could.

On the fourth night the distance broke.

Julian found her in the bathroom, sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, arms wrapped around her tummy, tears slipping quietly down her face. She looked up when he appeared in the doorway, eyes red.

“It hurts,” she whispered. “My period started and it hurts so much I can’t sleep.”

The hard set of his shoulders eased instantly. He crossed the room without hesitation, knelt in front of her, and carefully rested his hands on her knees — waiting to see if she would pull away.

She didn’t.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” he asked, voice low and rough with something that wasn’t anger.

“Because we were fighting,” she said, fresh tears falling. “And I didn’t want you to touch me.”

Julian exhaled slowly. He reached up and brushed the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs, the touch gentler than anything he had given her in days.

“I’m touching you now,” he said quietly. “And I’m not leaving. Tell me what you need.”

Isabella’s face crumpled. She leaned forward until her forehead rested against his shoulder, and for the first time since the argument, she let him hold her.

Julian wrapped his arms around her carefully, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other moving in slow circles over her lower back.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured against her hair. “You’re allowed to be in pain. You’re allowed to need me. Even when you’re angry at me.”

She cried harder, fists curling into his shirt, and he simply stayed there on the bathroom floor with her, solid and quiet and present, until the worst of the pain and the silence between them finally began to ease